Expanding the Scope of the #MeToo Movement

Over the past several months, the #MeToo movement has gone viral on social media as countless women have come forward to share their experiences with sexual assault and harassment. Originally coined by activist Tarana Burke, the phrase “me too” was re-popularized as a “way for users to tell their experience with sexual violence and stand in solidarity with other survivors” after The New Yorkerpublished an article in which more than a dozen women accused film producer Harvey Weinstein of sexual harassment, assault, and rape. Although the movement’s impact has been largely positive, as the conversation around sexual assault expands to include women’s experiences with a “gray area of violating, noncriminal sex” it’s important to acknowledge that patriarchal standards of consent perpetuate a dating and sex culture that can lead to trauma, regardless of whether it fits the legal definition of assault.

Last weekend, Babe published the story of Grace, a 22-year-old photographer who went on a date and then had a sexual encounter with Aziz Ansari, a self-proclaimed feminist known for his comedic social commentary on the complexities of modern dating. According to the account, after the pair returned to Ansari’s apartment, he quickly escalated the situation despite Grace’s verbal and nonverbal cues that she was uncomfortable. After Ansari continuously attempted to initiate sex, Grace stated, “I don’t want to feel forced because then I’ll hate you, and I’d rather not hate you.” Ansari’s coercive behavior continued until Grace eventually stood up and he called her a car.

Unlike the response to most other accounts of sexual assault that have recently been made public, the reaction to Grace’s allegations has been predominantly negative. In a New York Times op-ed about the encounter, Bari Weiss writes, “The insidious attempt by some women to criminalize awkward, gross, entitled sex takes women back to the days of smelling salts and fainting couches. That’s somewhere I, for one, don’t want to go.” An article published by The Atlanticgoes even further in minimizing the harm inflicted by Ansari’s actions, alleging that “what [Grace] felt afterward—rejected yet another time, by yet another man—was regret. And what she and the writer who told her story created was 3,000 words of revenge porn. The clinical detail in which the story is told is intended not to validate her account as much as it is to hurt and humiliate Ansari. Together, the two women may have destroyed Ansari’s career, which is now the punishment for every kind of male sexual misconduct, from the grotesque to the disappointing.”

Participants march against sexual assault and harassment at the #MeToo March in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles on Sunday, Nov. 12, 2017. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

While Weiss, Caitlin Flanagan, and many other online commentators have moved to dismiss Grace’s account as a disservice to #MeToo that removes women of their agency, their arguments seem to miss the broader objective of the movement. Regardless of whether a woman is subjected to a “bad date” or forced into unwanted sexual activity, both experiences reflect the socialization of sexual violence and the assumption that women should accept harmful sexual situations as normal. Rather than shaming those who speak out, we should move to challenge damaging narratives that downplay men’s responsibility to respect their sexual partners and women’s autonomy to make their own decisions. Ansari’s actions may not reflect malicious conscious intent or a crime but they certainly illustrate the subversive patriartical teachings of all-powerful men and submissive women. He believed he had the authority, power, and right to question Grace, rather than accepting her as an equal human being. As Emma Gray writes, “if the #MeToo movement is going to amount to sustained culture change―rather than simply a weeding out of the worst actors in a broken system―we need to renegotiate the sexual narratives we’ve long accepted. And that involves having complicated conversations about sex that is violating but not criminal.” Grace’s encounter with Ansari is difficult to confront, in part, because it’s painful admitting how common and normalized such interactions are: “If we begin to call all sexual assault what it is, we will have to voluntarily admit more pain into our lives, pain that we have up to this point refused to let in the door.”

As the rising number of women, including Grace, who have been encouraged to speak out by the #MeToo movement indicate, the statistics about sexual assault are overwhelming. According to the Rape Abuse Incest National Network and Know Your IX:

In the United States, someone is assaulted every 98 seconds.

About 3% of men living in the U.S. have experienced an attempted or completed rape in their lifetime. For women, these numbers are even higher—one out of every six has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime.

21% of TGQN (transgender, genderqueer, nonconforming) college students have been sexually assaulted, compared to 18% of non-TGQN females, and 4% of non-TGQN males.

Approximately 34% of multiracial women, 27% of Alaska Native/Native Indian women, 22% of black women and 14.6% of Hispanic women are survivors of sexual violence.

Despite these alarming numbers and the prevalence of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, depression, and drug and alcohol abuse among survivors, only 12% of college student survivors report assault to police. Even more alarming, only 7% of survivors of incapacitated sexual assault report to the police. Survivors cite several reasons for not reporting, including fear of retaliation; being unsure of whether what happened constitutes assault; and fear of being treated poorly by the criminal justice system. In order to end decades of victim-blaming and silencing, we must uplift survivors, regardless of whether their experiences conform to narrowly constructed perceptions of assault.

Although many of the responses to the allegations against Aziz Ansari have dismissed their relevance to the #MeToo movement, it’s important that we talk about Grace’s experience as an opportunity to educate and improve society’s understanding of consent and feminism when it comes to sex and all interactions. We must continue to call out the normalization of a misogynistic dating culture that enables further violence and challenge the fact “that women are socialized to be docile and accommodating and to put men’s desires before their own.” Once we do so, we will come closer to permanently eradicating all forms of sexual assault. We must continue to encourage enthusiastic, constant consent, empower survivors to share their stories, and stand in solidarity with them, no matter how difficult it may be.

Mia Lopez-Zubiri

This month, the US Department of Health and Human Services is seeking public comment on the objectives of the Healthy People 2030 health promotion and disease prevention initiative. Praxis encourages our community partners to take advantage of this opportunity to submit your comments on how to bend the nation’s health priorities towards health equity and […]

The momentum behind election season has shown that people across the country feel the wave of energized collective power and are more committed to living out their values. That is why on November 27th or Giving Tuesday—the Tuesday after Black Friday and Cyber Monday, we are calling on our friends, their extended networks and allies […]

Energy and Environment Internship, Public Lands and Ocean Policy Department: Energy and Environment Position classification: Internship Summary American Progress is a leader in addressing climate change, energy production, and the conservation crisis by driving research, messaging, and policy to defend and advance progressive policies that protect our air, land, and water. Interns working with American […]

The Department of Homeland Security has published a proposed rule impacting how immigrants who may access certain public benefits, could be restricted from entering the country or obtaining legal permanent residency. Submit your public comment (pre-written by the Protecting Immigrant Families Campaign) HERE or (standard) HERE and feel free to borrow from our language below: […]

The Praxis Project denounces the House Farm Bill and its provision to add stricter work requirements to its food-assistance program (SNAP) that would strip the benefits of about 2 million low-income people and their families in need of food security. The House announced its version of a farm bill to be considered by Congress before […]

We Need to Keep Advocating Against Ongoing Family Separation and Detention Update as of August 7th – please feel free to sign up HERE for ongoing updates. Months after the federal government knowingly subject children and parents to traumatic separation and detention through its targeted zero tolerance criminalization of parent refugee/asylees on the southern border: […]

Millions of people in the world’s most vulnerable and marginalized communities feel the worst impacts of climate change—including destruction by storms and flooding, crop failure caused by extreme drought, and deaths resulting from exposure to extreme weather conditions in areas with high levels of disinvestment. Climate issues cut across silos, merging social and economic conditions, […]

The following is our public comment to the Department of Commerce regarding the citizenship question proposed for the 2020 Census. You can submit your own public comment HERE (text provided) or HERE by August 7th. *** The Praxis Project writes to urge the Commerce Department to remove the question on respondent citizenship status from the […]

Recently, the Supreme Court ruled that the State of California could not require that anti-abortion ‘crisis pregnancy centers’ disclose comprehensive care options to women accessing services. A couple of days later, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement announcement has triggered calls to further limit women’s rights to full reproductive care (beyond ongoing and widespread efforts) […]